Al-Muntasir

al-Muntasir (840-7 June 862) was the Caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate from 861 to 862, succeeding al-Mutawakkil and preceding al-Musta'in.

Biography
al-Muntasir was born in 840 to al-Mutawakkil, and was a Sunni Muslim Bedouin. al-Muntasir was favored by his father, but when things began to change and he feared that his father was going to move against him, al-Muntasir had his father assassinated by a Turkish soldier. al-Muntasir smoothly rose to the caliphate with support from the Turkish faction, and he removed his brothers from the succession out of fear that they might avenge their father. Unlike his father, he loved Shi'ite Muslims, and removed the ban on pilgrimage to the tombs of Hasan ibn Ali and Husayn ibn Ali. He was bled with a poisoned scalpel/lancet in 862 and died, and al-Musta'in succeeded him as Caliph.